Owl Pellets
by divine obfuscation
Summary: The five pictures she keeps, and the one she'd rip up in a heartbeat if she knew it existed.
1. Soup and Sympathy

"You're getting older now," was all he said, cigarette dangling rakishly between his lips. "I have to have at least one picture of you. What kind of father would I be if I didn't?" Of course, she can't answer that – she's only an eight-year-old girl. So she waits patiently, standing on a crowded street, as he goes to charm a camera away from Antje, their landlady.

He comes back minutes later, grinning like an idiot, waving the device at her with childish glee. "Come on then, Lenore; _allons-y!_" Taking her by the hand, he leads her to some uncrowded bit of nowhere. It's a long walk, and by the time they get there, her feet hurt because her shoes are two sizes too small, her stomach is grumbling, and so is she.

Like an experienced photographer, he fusses about, pretending to know what he's doing. The two of them get so caught up in the act that they forget all about time, the cold, and even her hunger. By the time that he's actually prepared to do anything, though, the magic has worn off. She just wants to go home to Antje's soup, perhaps a nip of vodka, and maybe some more hot cocoa. "Come along then, Miss," he says, holding out his mittened hand, a bright red in the middle of all the grey.

Grey. The day is gloomy, overcast, and an icky mixture of coldwetgrey. _Coldwetgrey, coldwetgrey_, her mind chants. So they march, through certain half-deserted streets, through the slush and the ubiquitous mud, which seeps in through the holes in her shoes. Even though her coat is warm and she has a scarf on, she's still shivering. Hatless, her ears are uncovered, bitten red by the cold because the way that Antje pins her hair up has left nothing to cover those surprisingly important pieces of skin.

"Wait a moment!" exclaims the man. "Stay put," he orders suddenly as he steps back. She half-expects him to pull out a scrap of paper and start scribbling madly, but he lifts up the camera instead. "Look at me—" and _snap!_ the photo's taken. They venture on home, where Antje frets over their wet feet, and her father (who Antje calls Evan, for some reason, which confuses Charlotte) laughs and calls Antje a silly goose and it feels like this is what a home should be like.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

She doesn't get to see the film when he develops it. All her inquiries are met with a mysterious grin, and a "Maybe later," so after a week, she forgets all about it.

It only surfaces again when she's fourteen and packing up to move again. They've been wandering for the last few weeks with a group of Roma. Once again, her shoes are too small, and her pants are too short, but there isn't really anything she can do about it, other than change to wearing a long, draping skirt. Which she does. In the middle of rooting around for at least a pair of slippers (her toes are both very cold and very pinched), her hands hit a small, unfamiliar object.

Fishing it out of the trunk, she discovers that it's an old cigar case. Since when did Papa smoke cigars? Curious, she opens it, and a few letters come tumbling out. She catches them against her body, and then picks through the rest of the contents. They're all letters, all from Antje, and Charlotte feels a wave of something hit her. It can't be homesickness; she's never had a permanent home. Nonetheless, it's crippling, and it feels like her stomach is cramping (however unromantic that may be) with longing.

She wants soup.

She wants Antje's beef soup, the one with all sorts of rotten vegetables and herbs and a bit of special something. "I'll teach you someday," she'd said with a wink. They'd left before 'someday' ever came. She wants a warm fireplace and somebody to fuss over her instead of the rain that's seeping into her socks via the hole in her sneakers. She wonders where Antje is now, and if she'd be willing to share the secret still. She also wonders what she thought of this picture.

The picture-Charlotte, though only eight, has a serious look on her young features – an old, solemn look that is both immediate and distant at the same time, wisps of her hair blowing around her face. _So solemn_, the now-Charlotte marvels. So solemn, yet so young. Oddly enough, she doesn't think her childhood made her grow up all that quickly.

"Lenore? _Lenore!_" Her father's voice calls, excited.

"Coming, Papa," replies the girl, as she slips the photograph into one of the many pockets hidden in the folds of her skirts, shoves the letters back into the tin, and rushes out from their little makeshift shelter to see what's going on that's so urgent.


	2. False Step

She doesn't even know why she keeps the second photograph, only that she does. It's a failure, so to speak; the entire image is bright green leaves with sunlight streaming through and a blur of brown in the lower left-hand corner. Even the leaves aren't in focus – everything is just a bit blurry around the edges, and she wonders why she even bothers carrying this thing around.

A hawk was flying by, you see, and she just barely caught it on film. There are a few dark streaks where there were stripes on the feathers, but other than that, the image is a dud. In an effort to slightly tweak the picture, she cut off some of the right side, effectively turning the photo into a perfect square. (That was during her square period. Nothing was safe – not even her schoolwork. That is, when she did it.) It didn't work. Every time she looks at that photograph, the dark brown seems to get stronger, and she can almost feel the air rushing by her.

It's not even a good action shot, to be completely honest. Everything's just a bit fuzzy around the edges, and the square shape only serves to make the brown blot of her inadequacy even more prominent. Still, it's one of the photographs she can't let go of – even if she doesn't know why.


	3. Infans Romanus

In Italy, they live with Franz, a blond man who reminds her of Apollo from her father's description. When she asks if they're related, Franz shakes his head solemnly, instantly earning her admiration. She doesn't like it when grown-ups laugh at her – she's four years old, and old enough to know things, and she knows she likes Franz. By the end of the hour, he's telling her fantastic stories, and she's mimicking the funny way that he speaks. "_Ja_," she says, face serious and brow slightly wrinkled in concentration. "Sound _goot_."

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

They live like that for quite some time, with Papa crouched on his chair, looming over his typewriter, and Franz and Charlotte going out for everything else. They learn by the end of the first week that it's best to send Charlotte down to the market for anything they need, because there's a certain amount of shame associated with trying to swindle a small child that would not be there if, say, said child was there with a parent of sorts. They also learn that Ranier does not like to be disturbed when in a metaphysical trance, or any time where he sits still (almost too still) and stares intently at everything and nothing.

By the end of the first week, they tiptoe quietly around the three-room hovel when Ranier writes, and they send Charlotte to do all the shopping. She picks up Italian with ease, and speaks it out there. At home, she mimics Franz, much to his amusement, and speaks English with perfect inflection when talking to her father.

Franz, as she finds out, is Austrian. It's why he speaks funny (it's called 'having an accent,' she learns) and it's another reason why she gets sent to buy everything – nobody can understand a word he says in Italian. So he teaches her German instead. German and photography. He gives her one of his old cameras as a present, and it's the best unbirthday present she's ever gotten. The only one, too.

She takes pictures of only a few important things, just as frugal with her film as she is with the egg money. They tease her about it, and tell her all sorts of stories about a little girl who refused to share simple beauties with the world and consequently turns into a hideous monster.

(She has nightmares that night and crawls into the bed between Papa and Franz, comforted by the smell of cigarettes and wine and the chicken they had for dinner. Franz strokes her head and sings a lullaby in a way that makes his chest vibrate like a cat purring, and that lulls her to sleep.)

It's the most natural thing in the world. She gets her lessons as they come, more often than not in German than in English, but it seems perfectly normal to her. She can't remember a time without Franz, and so it seems only natural that she should take a picture of him. After all, he reminds her of Apollo, and from what her Papa said, Apollo was quite lovely.

She stands on the bed, trying to get eye level with him, but to no avail. They spend the entire morning trying to figure out ways so she can get the shot she sees so clearly in her head. Frustrated to the point of almost-tears, biting down on her lip, she can't manage. Why is he so tall, anyways? It's almost as though a giraffe has suddenly replaced her Franz, and she wants to know why. Wisely, he refrains from saying anything about her failure. "Come, _libeling_," he says, sitting next to her on the crumpled coverlet. "We can try again later. I'll get some water." Her nod is shaky at best, and he gets up to get some water for all of them.

Papa is sitting in the same corner next to the window, still bent almost double over the typewriter, but this time with the keys clickety-clacking furiously as he writes. When Franz comes back with the water and sets it down on the nightstand next to the poet, Charlotte takes the picture on a whim. Franz moves, though, and when he develops the film in his friend's darkroom during a trip to the city, he comes out as a blur next to Ranier, whose expression is entirely focused on the page before him. The black and white quality of the picture only makes more distinct the sharp lines of his profile against the wall of the house. Still, Franz is 'tickled pink' (a phrase she learns from Papa) and makes them all copies. He even slips in an actual photo of himself for her in the envelope when they have to part ways.

Without Franz, the house feels oddly empty, and she wanders aimlessly from one room to the next, exploring every nook and cranny of the ramshackle cottage. They stay like that, him clickety-clacking away and her listlessly roaming until another man (_Giancarlo_, he says in his thick Italian accent. She doesn't like it.) comes and yells at them. They move out in a hurry, and the one thing she loses is the picture of Franz.


	4. Truth

**AN: It's a chapter done by some anonymous kid somwehere, trying to pay his/her rent. There will be swearing, but light. :)**

* * *

I hate musehunting.

Well, it's not really hunting, to be honest – it's more like opening yourself up to be inspired. At least, that's how my mentor, Herr Doerfler, puts it. But then again, Herr Doerfler is the sort of man that ladies (and men) flock to, so he never had any issues there. With gold hair and dashing good looks, it's always been easy for him to attract a few moths. Myself, on the other hand… well, let's not go there. Really – let's not.

So anyhow, that's the whole reason why I was standing in Herr Doerfler's studio that Wednesday afternoon in the fall: project musefind. Don't get me wrong – every artist needs a muse. At least, all the good ones do. Herr Doerfler specializes in those odd, lanky brunettes. Well, he's done other stuff it's just that the brunettes stand out. That was what I looked for – something that distinguished one girl from the others.

I paced. Up, down, up down, up down, and up again. Seriously, was this all that London had to offer? Tsk, tsk. So in an effort to appear mildly authoritative, I waved a couple away, and was left with a lineup of ten or so. "So," I found myself asking, "Why are you here?" Legit question. It's an awesome time-killer if you have no clue what the hell you're doing, and you just need to have some time to figure out who to eeny-meeny-miney-mo.

Almost immediately, the same verbal diarrhea comes up. Some trite stuff about wanting to go into modeling since a young age, and something about dreams. You know what, girl? I had dreams too. Look where they got me: here, in front of you, and listening to your bullshit. So yeah, if I appear to not care, maybe that's why. You, and your terrible makeup. God, if I wanted paint-by-numbers, I'd do it myself.

Halfway down the line, there's this short (well, relatively, considering that all these glorified toothpicks tower above me) brunette. "What about you?" I ask, ready to move on to the next girl. Really, they're all just about the same.

Instead of feeding me the same scripted shit that the rest of them have done, she gives me a quick appraisal. Guts. I like those. "I felt like it," she says, careless, shrugging as though this all means nothing to her, and she has a legitimate job offer waiting in the next five minutes. She then makes the mistake of looking directly in my eyes, without bothering to hide the fact that she's lying blatantly, and challenging me to call her on it.

"What's your name?"

"Antje." Lies, lies. I like that.

So that's where I was, stuck. I'm still stuck, because I haven't actually said anything, and I think they're fidgeting. I walked over to where Herr Doerfler's secretary stood, no doubt ready to make some sort of report in the event of an emergency. Fantastic. "So, uh, what do I do if I've found something that works?"

"Herr Doerfler said to tell you to figure that one out on your own."

Well, damn. But I guess I get my own style if I do it my way. "You can all go," I said loudly, almost a little too loudly, and noticed some shoulders droop at the sound. "Antje, a word, please."

She trots over, careless arrogance still on her face, as I explain the terms of the contract. She doesn't bat an eye, just signs it and asks when shooting starts. "Tomorrow," I tell her, picking up the piece of paper and trying to figure out her real name. It starts with a C, but that's all I can get. No matter, I finally found a theme for the damn thing:

Truth.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

My mom claims I would've made an excellent shrink. She thinks that I have some sort of weird urge to solve people's problems, which may or may not be true. I was just bored that day, honest, and "Antje" offered a solution to that boredom.

Anyways, one of the real reasons I needed a model was because some designer nobody saw something that I did ages ago and liked it. And since I'm a nobody with rent to pay, it works out pretty well. I don't charge much, for one. So I'm a cheap nobody, who's attempting to make it big off of two other nobodies, which is kind of ironic if you think about it. If anything, they'll get recognized, and I'll still end up being the cheap nobody with rent to pay. Woe, alas.

So "Antje" comes in the first day in some sort of gypsy/ragdoll getup, and I'm so damn tempted to just photograph her in that. Looks fantastic, anyways. We do the generic stuff for the day, and when she's about to go, I hear her jabbering in Polish to one of the makeup artists. Interesting. But because I'm not a creeper, I don't stay behind to eavesdrop and pretend I know what's going on.

That evening, I have the most fantastic conversation with Herr Doerfler in which he basically tells me to do whatever the hell I want, but within reason. The man is awesome, and just pretty much gave me permission to use blindfolds and crazy stuff and generally harass groundskeepers for some old-as-dirt homes or schools to let me shoot some photos. I may or may not be in love.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

It's the eyes.

I swear, it's those eyes. As soon as she puts on the blindfold, it's like the whole thing has changed completely. There's no longer this jaded, sexy, come-hither look that would totally turn me on if I was into women. It's, like, completely transforming. I'm a fucking genius. Even that studmuffin that we've got for the male model. In contrast to her Hade's, he's, like, freakin' Persephone, but in male form. It's… scary, to say the least, but pretty damn genius. Even the makeup artists and the dude who does the lighting are staring, not to mention the guy that she's supposed to be working with.

They're all staring, and it's not because she's pretty. It's because she looks completely different. That mouth, that chin, those lips – they could all belong to any innocent girl playing blindman's bluff in the 1800s, but in her shift. Yeah, the clueless nobody who wanted fall colors in his photoshoot designed next-to-freaking nothing, and both of the models are shivering, the poor things.

But the blindfold… that blindfold's scary, even for me. It's elegant, classy, and strangely mysterious, yet disarming in a way that I would've never imagined. So me, being the creeper I am, get mister what's-his-face to come over, and I pretty much bribe him into finding out her name. I can see it happen as he stands behind her, bare-chested, and probably warmer than anything else in this cold fall twilight. "Hey," he probably says, whispering so that only a puff of breath escapes. "Am I ever going to figure out your name?"

She leans up, links her arms around his neck and pulls his ear down to near her mouth. _Snap_. _Snap. Snap._ I have no clue how many times I've pressed the shutter by this point. "Charlotte," she whispers, and the voice doesn't even sound like the brash, assertive one from the selection day. _Damn_, this is good. If there were two of me, there'd be high-fives all around.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

The sun set a couple hours ago. It's dark, but not nearly dark enough for us to quit, because I'm a selfish bastard, and really like evenings and the dark. Between setups, Charlotte and What's-his-face are shivering, cocooned in blankets, but bloody-freaking-brilliant at the same time. I might have shot a few photos of them, just like that, simply because I could. It looked pretty decent, at least.

She gets up and unwraps, patiently waiting as the blindfold gets tied around her head, and then goes to stand in the middle of the path. This one's her, just her, and I'm so ready to just snap this photo and then say farewell to this Muse of mine, just because – well, that's how life tends to work. People don't really see each other again, but this girl has potential. She stands there, shivering, and the lighting dude is aiming the light, and I'm all ready to take the picture when some asshole comes up through the set, spoils the moment, and puts his jacket around her shoulders.

Wait. Did I say "spoils the moment?" I actually meant "completes the moment." Whoops.

In a way that What's-His-Face never could manage, she looks up at him, questioningly, as if she knows who he is even with that white cloth covering her eyes. _Snap_. He unties it gently, and she looks up, wonderingly, and (_snap_) I get another photograph in before just stopping and staring like the moron I am. These two, whoever they are, pretty much complete each other, which is really, painfully, disgustingly obvious. So obvious that lighting dude has forgotten his job (like I just did mine) and we're gawking together. Power to the losers. I like that guy.

So yeah, Charlotte and Other Guy are just staring at each other, and she pulls his jacket closer over her shoulders, because she's shivering because Designer Nobody's more of a moron than I am in making these "clothes." But I can't do anything about it, so I get up and leave, since it's really rude to interrupt people – didn't your mother ever teach you that?

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

A week later, she's shuffling through the pictures, because I invited her to. Y'know, portfolios and all that great shit. Models need those too, don't they? Well, anyways, she was standing next to me, and of course (I so called this) she makes a beeline for those pictures of her and Other Guy.

"Hey," she says quietly. "Can I keep a couple of these?"

"Yeah, sure," I say, and she slips the two of them into an envelope. Funny, those were the only two that she bothered taking.


	5. Deconstructionsm

Sometimes, she just can't bring herself to believe the gall of those humans.

Their obsession with knowing everything and anything there is to know about a person is positively revolting. It makes her sick; she wants to throw up or at least projectile vomit on somebody semi-important, just to make a point, even if said point was most likely going to be misconstrued as bulimia. Oh well. Some things, you just couldn't help, and the inevitable conspiracy theorist-fangirls were quite a large factor. For the third time that day, she ripped down one of the ever-popular posters on the wall, fuming all the while, and hoping to whatever gods there happened to be listening on Olympus that someone would have the good sense to smite a bitch. No time like the present, after all.

_Ruggedly handsome football hottie Christian McCallister, spotted with prima donna Charlotte Edessa!_

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

For starters, the article (which was really just one or two paragraphs of background, and then half a page of snooping around and speculation, and then another two-page spread of photographs and terribly-photoshopped images that seemed to be the forte of tabloid writers everywhere) didn't even constitute anything that was even remotely significant. Charlotte was, as everybody already knew, just a girl. A theatre dork, actually, with no claim to fame other than the leading female role in the play that hadn't even been put on yet. She got the sinking feeling that one of the PR people had put on such a stunt, but at the moment, she was really far too aggravated to care. Well, aggravated, really, and in the middle of navigating a veritable minefield. Half (if not all) the reason why there'd been a _two page spread_ about Christian (and a few pictures of her, as well) was because of the fangirls.

To be completely, utterly, and brutally honest, Charlotte did not give a damn about the whole fiasco. In fact, when she goes to rehearsal later that afternoon, she ignores the wolf-whistles and the _damn, girl!_s with queenly grace that soon sets her admirers to shame. She's good at that, the ignoring, and the complete snow queen act, because very seldom do things actually get to her. They only annoy her, like flies on a horse's back, that get flicked away by a swishing tail, but she can't stand some things. The invasion of privacy, for instance. How the hell did some snot-nosed idiot manage to get close enough to her house to photograph her, for instance? She feels out of place, a violet in a desert, and she feels targeted.

She wants to flee, to run, and to never show her face again in this dreary little Florida town where the average age is something near sixty. She can't stand the fact that, with a couple clicks of the shutter, people have come dangerously close to finding her out for who she really is: a sensitive, sentient being with actual emotion. So instead of going up to people and demanding what the hell their problem is, she snarls, her sounds feral in the quaintly civilized town, drawing a couple of stares. She knows that they're all wondering how the hell some random theatre girl managed to hook up with a football player of Christian's caliber, he who could have any girl in the school.

There's a simple enough answer: they're not hooked up.

Duh.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

And, of course, to set the record straight, none of the pictures that they have of her are actually any that she would've actually ever posed for. Dear God, _no_. Hells to the freaking no. Actually, taken out of context, she thinks that none of these pictures actually mean anything, because they're scattered images. What those people are so frantically trying to dig around for, the _whole_, can't exist in such fragmented pieces. Which is what she tells herself, because Franz always told her to look for the whole, and not the half. So when she gets home, with one copy of the vile gossip (called _The Questioneer;_ what sort of stupid name was that?) in her bag, she goes through it while Ranier sits in the kitchen and sings stories about how they came across the Atlantic for a kiss and a song.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

_Edessa, one of the up-and-coming stars of the stage, also harbors dreams of being a model. It's been known that she practices her catwalk on the roof of her house when she suspects that nobody's looking, but the Questioneer knows better~!!_

She's standing there, poised, with the moon and the far distant city lights as her background. Her head is bowed; there's a look of concentration on her face. She remembers that night, only because of what she was wearing (some sort of old sundress that was the flowy sort of garment that never goes out of style) and the fact that she was going at it with her bare feet, and not flip-flops or ballet flats on her feet.

She remembers the way that the wind came up suddenly, almost knocking her off balance, but she managed to catch herself in the nick of time. Beneath her, the house mutters mutinously as Ranier groans, caught either in physical or poetic ecstasy. She'd rather not think about it at the moment – she's walked in on far too many scenes of intimacy in her young life already.

Charlotte took a step forwards, balancing as she tottered precariously. She bites her lip, because that's what she does whenever she's concentrating, and takes a couple more steps forwards. The dress floats out behind her, surprisingly insubstantial. A section of hair falls forwards, into her face, and she tucks it behind her left ear. That's when the camerasnipe got the shot, she supposes, because the subject is far too natural, and far too engrossed to have posed. But the image isn't a stand-alone: without the rest of the memory, this one fails to have any significance. Satisfied with her deconstruction, her eyes travel to the next picture.

There's no caption for this one. Instead, it's poorly framed, purposely jagged edges complementing those opposite her, a picture of Christian in full football regalia, looking every bit the moron as his face contorts in concentration. Of course, she's no beauty herself: they were running through lines that day, and her brow is furrowed. There was something about anger, or concentration, or something else. She doesn't remember exactly what, only that the idiot running the theatre program thought that they should all incorporate facial expressions that day. She doesn't need facial expressions – for any actor worth his salt, vocal inflection should be enough. Any photographer worth his salt should also be able to produce a stunning body of work, and not resort to squashing together two poor compositions to try and make one for the mass consumer.

She proceeds in this fashion, her inner commentary becoming a litany of criticism in this ritual deconstruction. Something in her has to have this, this tearing down, because she takes comfort in this total and utter destruction. To validate the artistic qualities of this rudimentary collage is to validate the truth of the prose, and that's one thing that she absolutely refuses to do. Charlotte moves through the work quickly and efficiently, managing to effectively demolish any sort of standing that it could have had, and somewhere inside, the knot in the pit of her stomach seems to be loosening. She can breathe – she can breathe again, and after this last photograph, she'll be able to show up at that little institution they call a school, and be able to glide through the crowds with all the stateliness of a queen. She manages perfectly, until she sees the last photograph.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

_Do you think, _she'd asked him quietly, that night after the game and the dance, _do you think that the universe conspires with or against us?_ She'd just been reading _The Alchemist_, and though it was completely useless to discuss philosophy with Christian, she thought she'd give it a go.

They were lying in the middle of the football field, all the fans gone, and the stadium eerily silent after the cacophony of before. Instead of basking in the afterglow and going to party after party, he'd chosen to stay behind, and that's when, coming up after several detentions (there was something that the administration didn't get about not having a vehicle of sorts and having a father with very little faith in the American public education system), she'd seen him standing there.

She'd tiptoed up behind him, and tilted her head up, curious to see what could possibly be more engrossing than pretty girls throwing themselves at you, and caught a look at the stars. And then it tumbled out, her question, before she could even help it, and before she even knew it, they were on the grass, lying together, and both looking up at the sky, as if they were in some sort of terrible low-budget movie. He'd shrugged in reply, not really sure of what to say. He didn't do the metaphysical, and they both knew it.

He was on his back, spread-eagled, but with his hands tucked behind his head, pillowing it from the small holes that cleats tended to make in soft ground. Right next to him, curled into a small ball, she'd stayed, the breeze ruffling her hair just the slightest and managing to go right through that one hole in her sweater. She shivered.

"Hey babe," he'd asked, not even turning her head. "You cold?"

"Not at all." For once, her response wasn't biting, scathing, or even the least bit painful. It was just a statement, just like the fact that he was a boy and she was a girl and they were both so much more than external appearances betrayed.

They were silent. "Do you think they're watching?" she asked, suddenly, head turning, neck craning to look up at the stars. "I mean, beyond? Do you even think they know what's happening?"

She needs an answer. Craves an answer. Even if a lightning bolt were to strike her dead this instant, at least it'd be an answer, and it would've been more than she'd gotten for decades, wandering aimlessly with a man who could not put down roots. But he has no answers, and even as she looks up, not even registering his presence, he's shifting, turning to face her, hand creeping ever closer to her back, as if he's ready to draw her in to the circle of warmth and keep her there, safe and sound. But he doesn't; he holds back because he knows that if he did, she'd never forgive him. And, though in those moments when all is quiet and still, they both know that she would grant him pardon, absolution, and anything he wanted a million times over, they both know that the instant matters. They breathe, tasting the air subconsciously, and somehow know that they are not alone, though this discovery does not register. They still stay there, frozen yet fluid, simultaneously trapped and liberated by instinct.

《 ❀ ❀ ❀ 》

This last photograph, she knows not where it comes from, only that it exists. But she can't bring herself to tear it down, to destroy it completely and utterly, because – well, by itself, even after an entire rampage, this photograph is enough to stop her in her tracks. She can't possibly do anything: to kill this would be to kill a butterfly. Instead of doing anything, she tiptoes quietly over to the kitchen, past the landlady's bedroom, and takes the pair of scissors lying on the counter. Then, with the utmost care, she snips around the photograph in the paper, leaving the rest of the magazine to rot in the trash bin, but folds up the bit of gold that she's gleaned and tucks it carefully into her breast pocket.


	6. Lucky Sod

None of them recognize her.

When girls pretend to borrow his phone throughout high school and college and beyond, they all take the opportunity to invade his privacy. They check through his text messages, through his contacts, through ringtones, wallpapers, and his soul, because they rifle through all that is supposed to be private. They always snoop through the pictures when they can, laughing at the stupid ones, cooing over his dog, passing by the other unimportant shots, but all of them inevitably stop on a certain photo file.

"Who's she?" they demand in one way or another. The unspoken question lingers – _is she your girlfriend _– and sometimes, they stay to find out. There's no other explanation why he'd have such a thing, especially on his phone, if they weren't an item. Only couples did that sort of thing, right? But he doesn't think they're an item. Or, at least, he knows for sure that at that moment, they're not an item because the two of them are generally separated by an ocean, if not only half a landmass. And couples don't do that sort of thing.

The girls who nose around in his phone don't get any answers, mostly because he doesn't even have an answer for himself.

〚 ❀ ❀ ❀ 〛

He has a hard copy of this picture, neatly folded between various bills in his wallet, and it tends to fall out every so often, like when he's seeing if he has enough to go for a couple of drinks with the other guys, or paying for the groceries, or when he does that stupid thing that guys do, going through the contents of their wallets, taking everything out, and forgetting to put it all back in. But he doesn't forget – he can't forget her.

It falls out one day in the spring, right before finals, when they're all just sitting on the grass, and a girl (he forgets which one) is sitting, head pillowed on his stomach, and is lazily looking through the contents of his pockets. Her brown hair tangles in his belt loops, and she's got everything neatly beside her. Stubs from tickets. Coins. A paper clip. A couple of sticky notes with websites for job applications. His wallet. "So, what's in here?" she asks, blue eyes grinning up at him. They're similar eyes to ones that he knew from before, but not the same. They're never quite the same, and he knows it: nothing can replace the beauty of the original. Facsimiles fade in time due to replication, to imitation. Photocopies are infinitely less precious than the original. Still, like in the art world (he doesn't remember where he knows this from), the more copies of one thing there are, the more precious the original work becomes. So he sees those eyes on posters, in magazines, in other humans, but never quite the same.

Those eyes look up at him, silent and still. "Who is she?" the girl asks, and he can't bring himself to say anything.

"A friend."

(When the two of them part ways a week later, she doesn't mention anything about the picture. But he can still see it in her eyes, and hear it in her self-deprecating laugh. And he hates himself for it.)

〚 ❀ ❀ ❀ 〛

In time, he starts wearing a wedding band. It's so much easier than answering the questions.

〚 ❀ ❀ ❀ 〛

"So, you're married?"

They run into each other on a Monday in May when he's somewhere in France trying not to be conspicuously American, and she's apparently there for modeling or something. Whatever she does. The gist of the matter somehow made them end up at this little café for _un petit repos_. "No, not at all," he explains hastily. "It's just to keep, well, er—"

She grins knowingly, wolfishly. "Still as popular as ever with the ladies, I see."

That wouldn't be the half of it.

〚 ❀ ❀ ❀ 〛

He doesn't know how they manage to, but in the end they fall into step once more. He mysteriously loses the wedding band when the two of them start living together, but he doesn't lose the picture. It stays there, faithfully in his wallet, and sometimes (when he doesn't have more than a bill clip) in the pocket on the inside of his coat jacket. He fully forgets about it until she drops off his blazer at the dry cleaner's, and picks it up, leaves it on the bed.

There, in the pocket, is the picture, worn but with a note as well, in unfamiliar writing that matches the scrawl on the receipt.

_Lucky sod_.


End file.
